The Milwaukee Maps collection was developed as a collaborative project between the American Geographical Society Library (AGSL) , located at the University of Milwaukee-Wisconsin, and Milwaukee Public Library. The maps…

Gathering Art, Stories and Place

The City of Milwaukee has been selected as a recipient of a grant of $150,000 from the National Endowment of the Art (NEA) to fund the Gathering Art, Stories and Place (GASP) at the Mitchell Street Branch (906 W. Historic Mitchell St.). Led by Milwaukee Public Library and Artists Working in Education, the project is supported by Ex Fabula as well as other nonprofits, schools and community centers.

With this grant, the project team will utilize the library's maker space and other indoor and outdoor gathering spaces to host a variety of storytelling-themed programs, including a visual storytelling festival featuring deaf storytellers, an artist lecture series, writing workshops, a new archive of collected neighborhood stories, and two artist-in-residence programs. A mobile art studio accessible to youth is also planned, providing free art education and cultural enrichment activities.

The plans, developed in partnership with the Department of City Development and the Milwaukee Arts Board, create a unique hub for creative expression and cultural discourse will empower neighbors to create, share, and celebrate cultural diversity through storytelling and art.

This project is in collaboration with community partners, Milwaukee Public Library, Listening to Mitchell artists Sonja Thomsen and Adam Carr, Ex Fabula and Artists Working in Education, Inc. The project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment of the Arts, with additional support from the Milwaukee Public Library Foundation.

Events

2018 Artist Residency Celebration

Join us for the culmination of Erick Ledesma’s year-long artist residency as a part of the Gathering Art, Stories and Place project. Throughout 2018, Erick created murals with the teen interns for the Northwestern Mutual Foundation Studio M Makerspace, hosted two exciting community projects - Iron Board Café and Community Canvas - and collaborated with community members to create self-portraits that he used to design a permanent sculpture for the library entitled Faces of Mitchell.

Celebrate the unveiling of this new permanent sculpture as well as the many contributions of the inaugural artist-in-residence. The finalist for the 2019 Gathering Art, Stories & Place artist-in-residence will also be announced.

Program begins at 5:15 p.m., followed by unveiling of sculpture and announcement of 2019 Artist-in-Residence